Aral Sea 2011 [image] #NASA

View Image Comparison View Both Images Jewel-like green against the desert of central Asia, the Aral Sea has a long history of change. Over thousands of years, the lake has filled and dried, its fate linked to the flow of the rivers that feed it, particularly the Amu Darya. Since 1960, local rivers have been diverted in large-scale agricultural projects, and the Aral Sea has lost 90 percent of its volume. Once the world’s fourth largest lake, the rapidly shrinking Aral Sea has fragmented into four bodies of water: the Northern Aral Sea, the eastern and western basins of the Southern Aral Sea, and Tsche-Bas Gulf. Of these, the eastern basin of the Southern Aral Sea and Tsche-Bas Gulf show the most dramatic change in 2011. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite acquired this image on August 15, 2011. It is the latest addition to the ...